Editorial Policies

For journals and eBooks, the following publication policies are applied by Bentham Science.

Peer Review

Bentham Science Publishers follows the single blind peer-review procedure for submissions of all manuscripts to its journals, except for a selected number of patent journals where double blind review is followed.

All submitted articles/eBook chapters are subjected to an extensive peer review in consultation with members of the journal’s editorial board and independent external referees (usually three reviewers). All manuscripts/chapters are assessed rapidly and the decision based on all the peer reviewers' comments, taken by the journal’s Editor-in-Chief/eBook Editor, is then conveyed to the author(s).

Submissions from the Editor-in-Chief will undergo independent peer-review and will be submitted to another Editor for his decision on acceptance.

Copyediting and Proofs

Articles and eBook chapters must be written in good English in a clear and correct style in order to maintain uniformity throughout the text. Articles/chapters submitted are copyedited before they are published.

Reprints

High-quality, bound/unbound, print/e-prints can be purchased for all published articles and book chapters.

Editorial Policies

Articles/chapters must be submitted by one of the authors of the manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required to submit a Copyright Letter along with the manuscript, on behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors who wish to make a complaint should refer it to the Editor-in-Chief of the relevant journal. For edited eBook series, the chapter contributors may direct their complaints to the Editor of the eBook. Complaints to the Publisher may be forwarded to Jalil@benthamscience.org

Conflict of Interest

Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.

Plagiarism Prevention

Bentham Science uses the iThenticate software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. iThenticate software checks content against a database of periodicals, the Internet, and a comprehensive article database. It generates a similarity report, highlighting the percentage of overlap between the uploaded article and the published material. Any instance of content overlap is further scrutinized for suspected plagiarism according to the publisher’s Editorial Policies. Bentham Science allows an overall similarity of 20% for a manuscript to be considered for publication. The similarity percentage is further checked keeping the following important points in view:

Low Text Similarity:

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

High Text Similarity:

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15% similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

Types of Plagiarism

We all know that scholarly manuscripts are written after thorough review of previously published articles. It is therefore not easy to draw a clear boundary between legitimate representation and plagiarism. However, the following important features can assist in identifying different kinds of plagiarized content. These are:

Reproduction of others words, sentences, ideas or findings as one’s own without proper acknowledgement.

Text recycling, also known as self-plagiarism. It is an author’s use of a previous publication in another paper without proper citation and acknowledgement of the original source.

Poor paraphrasing: Copying complete paragraphs and modifying a few words without changing the structure of original sentences or changing the sentence structure but not the words.

Verbatim copying of text without putting quotation marks and not acknowledging the work of the original author.

Properly citing a work but poorly paraphrasing the original text is considered as unintentional plagiarism. Similarly, manuscripts with language somewhere between paraphrasing and quoting are not acceptable. Authors should either paraphrase properly or quote and in both cases, cite the original source.

Higher similarity in the abstract, introduction, materials and methods, and discussion and conclusion sections indicates that the manuscript may contain plagiarized text. Authors can easily explain these parts of the manuscript in many ways. However, technical terms and sometimes standard procedures cannot be rephrased; therefore Editors must review these sections carefully before making a decision.

Plagiarism in Published Manuscripts:

Published manuscripts which are found to contain plagiarized text are retracted from the journal’s website after careful investigation and approval by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal. A ‘Retraction Note’ as well as a link to the original article is published on the electronic version of the plagiarized manuscript and an addendum with retraction notification in the particular journal.

Copyright and License

Open Access Plus (Subscription Journals and eBooks)

Accepted articles can be published online for free open access. Open access publishing provides maximum dissemination of the article to the largest audience. All authors will be asked to indicate whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely available on publication. If authors do not select the 'Open Access Plus' option, then their article will be published with standard subscription-based access.

Copyright (Subscription Journals and eBooks)

Editors/Authors who contribute in a Bentham’s Journal/eBook will transfer copyright to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all editors/authors have read and agreed to the content of the copyright letter.

Ethical Approval of Studies and Informed Consent

For human or animal experimental investigations, it is a prerequisite to provide a formal review and approval, or review and waiver, by an appropriate institutional review board or ethics committee, which should be documented in the paper. For investigations undertaken on human subjects, the manner in which the informed consent was obtained from the study participants (i.e., oral or written) should be stated in the Methods section.

Authors are encouraged to obtain patient consent when they use confidential case material. Consent is not necessary in the case of very brief case vignettes which do not contain identifying information or if the case material is disguised sufficiently to prevent identification of the patient.

In obtaining consent, the author(s) should discuss the purpose(s) of publication, the possible risks and benefits to the patient and the patient's right to withhold or withdraw consent. In the case of a minor patient, consent should be obtained from the parent(s) or guardian(s).

All clinical investigations must be conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki principles. Authors must comply with the guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org) with regard to the patient’s consent for research or participation in a study. Patients' names, initials, or hospital numbers must not be mentioned anywhere in the manuscript (including figures). Editors may request that authors provide documentation of the formal review and recommendation from the institutional review board or ethics committee responsible for oversight of the study.

Errata and Corrections in Published Articles

Authors and readers are encouraged to notify the Editor-in-Chief if they find errors in published content, authors’ names and affiliations or if they have reasons for concern over the legitimacy of a publication. In such cases the journal will publish an ERRATUM in consultation with Editor-in-Chief and authors of the article, and/or replace or retract the article.

Article Withdrawal

Articles in Press (articles that have been accepted for publication or published as E-pub Ahead of Schedule but which have not been formally published with volume/issue/page information) that include errors, or are determined to violate the publishing ethics guidelines such as multiple submission, fake claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like, may be “Withdrawn” from the journal. Withdrawal means that the article files are removed and replaced with a PDF stating that the article has been withdrawn from the journal in accordance with BSP Editorial Policies.

Article Retraction

Published articles (with volume/issue/page information) which may contain infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data or the like are retracted.

A retraction note titled “Retraction: [article title]” signed by the authors and/or the Editor-in-Chief is published in the paginated part of a subsequent issue of the journal and listed in the contents list.

In the electronic version, a link is made to the original article.

The online article is preceded by a screen containing the retraction note. It is to this screen that the link resolves; the reader can then proceed to the article itself.

The original article is retained unchanged with a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

The HTML version of the document is removed.

Redundant (multiple) publication/ Re-publication

Abstracts and posters of conferences, results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings), results databases (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/information where this is not easily presented in tabular form) are not considered prior publication.

Authors who wish to publish translations of the articles that have been published elsewhere should ensure that they have appropriate permission(s), indicate clearly that the material has been translated and re-published, and indicate clearly the original source of the material. The Editor-in-Chief may request copies of related publications if he/she is concerned about overlap and possible redundancy.

PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION:

The Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink® service makes it faster and easier to secure permission from Bentham Science journal titles. Simply visit Journals by Title and locate the desired content. Then go to the article’s abstract and click on “Rights and Permissions” to open the RightsLink’s page. If you are unable to locate the content you wish to use or are unable to secure the rights you are seeking, please e-mail us at permissions@benthamscience.org

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless written permission has been obtained from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of the article for publication.

Disclaimer

Responsibility for the content published by Bentham Science Publishers in any of its journals, including any opinions expressed therein, rests exclusively with the author(s) of such content. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, BSP (on its own behalf, and on behalf of its staff and members of its editorial board) disclaims responsibility for any and all injury and/or damage (whether financial or otherwise) to persons or property, resulting directly or indirectly from any ideas, methods, instructions or products (including errors in the same) referred to in the content of any of BSP’s journals. Any dispute arising, including any claim shall be governed exclusively by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Sharjah.